Lessons From The Wizard Of Oz

from The Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, Chapter One at News From the West. I think this paragraph from William Jennings Bryant is crucial to understanding his position about gold and government money, and his famous "cross of gold" statement:

We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. . . . Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson . . . and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business. . . . [W]hen we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and . . . until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.